November 23, 2020 • 50 mins
Jeezy sits down with board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Jess. They discuss the stigma of seeking help for mental health issues, swap personal stories about depression, and how people can access resources around them to find help and stay safe.
This episode is based off the song "Therapy For My Soul," one of the tracks on Jeezy's new album, The Recession 2.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production
of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy,
Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is
my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my
(00:22):
music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country
the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now
strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show,
I will speak the powerful people from all walks of
life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope.
(00:43):
In each episode will feature a sample of a song
from my new album, The Recession Too. So without furtherdo
let's begin The Recessing Podcast. Let's get it. Today's conversation
is about mental health, something that many people don't like
(01:04):
to talk about. My guess is Dr Jessica Clemens, better
known as Dr Jess. She's an expert who was working
to reduce stigma, especially in the black community. A lot
of us, me included, have personal struggles that we've had
to deal with. Those challenges helped me to create my
new song, Therapy for my Soul. Been listening to my
(01:26):
thoughts and lately I've been concerned, feel like my soul
on fire. Let that motherfucker burned. Ain't nobody gave me
shall wait my mother fucking turn turn. I had a
few hits, even, I had a few misses. That comes
in the kitchen't even boke a few dishes, street like
scarved me? So neat therapy, therapy. Here's my conversation with
(01:51):
Dr Jess on the Recessing Podcast. Motherfucker burned, Ain't nobody
gave me shall wait my motherfucking turn turning? Dr Jess,
how you doing. I'm great, Thanks for having me, No,
thanks for being here, and welcome to the Recession Podcast.
It's something I've been doing to um, just bring a
(02:12):
lot of awareness to issues that I thought there was
going on in our world today. You know, we got
a whole pandemic going on, and we just got a
lot of things going on racism. And I hear that
you a specialist in mental health. Yes, that would be correct.
I'm a psychiatrist. Oh that's even better. So yeah, so
(02:36):
I consider myself, Yeah, an expert in the in this
area for sure. Yeah, so psychiatrists and therapist. Before we
get into this break it down, Okay, So I'd like
to tell people that psychiatrist is someone who they went
to med school, so like I'm a you know, I'm
a medical doctor. UM. The main difference between a psychiatrist
(02:58):
and a therapist is the psych chiatrists went to med
school and they prescribe medication. The fest is someone that
also is very well trained. UM, also an expert in
mental health. But you go and you talk, you talk
more about you know, what's going on in your life. UM.
I do both because the way I was trained, I
prescribe medication, but I also do therapy too, so it's
(03:21):
psychic and both. Boss. You know, it's crazy coming up.
I used to, UM. You know, when you hear like
psychiatrists or therapist, you think that something was really wrong
with you, and you didn't think you can get any help.
And it wasn't until my older years that I started,
you know, when my adult years did I started to
(03:43):
really realize that like you know, um, yeah, there could
be things wrong that you might need help with. One
would be as cool as I think I am, and
as cool as I have been for all these years,
I wouldn't have never thought that I would have suffered anxiety. UM.
(04:04):
And it was coming up from where you know we
come from you don't really get these terminologies and you
don't understand. You just think something's wrong because you already
got postraumatic stress for what's going on on the block
and the things that are happening around you. And once
I got out of that and I started getting into
my adulthood and start you know, doing different things with
my life, I still would, you know, have these feelings
(04:27):
before certain things, And I'm like, Wow, why do I
feel like that? And you know, it's almost like you're
too cool to say it because you don't, you know,
the whole thing is, nothing's wrong with me. I'm good.
I'm gonna be straight. You know, it's almost like a
weakness to admit that, you know, you have things that
go on in your head. When when when certain things
(04:49):
happen to certain trauma pulls things back up. And my
thing to you is, can we talk about what anxiety is? Yeah?
I mean I guess I would start by saying what
you described about. You know this um sort of like
coming to the realization that hey, you might be experience anxiety.
(05:09):
I think that's really normal. I hear a lot of
that when I'm caring for people in the office. Also
through social media, I use that to try to get
conversations going, Like to your point, these conversations haven't been
happening in our community for a number of reasons, and
we may touch on some of that, but what you're
describing is absolutely like exactly what I hear in the office.
(05:32):
And so anxiety itself, we consider it a disorder. UM.
But if you think about sort of what what you're experiencing,
you're experiencing fear, right, whether it's constant worries, like you know,
I'm worried that if I don't do this, I won't
get that opportunity, or if I go here, I'll get
injured like that. That type of worry is really fear,
(05:54):
and it can also manifest physically, so you might you
might not be like some one who's really in your head.
Maybe maybe you're cool, calm, collected, you're not thinking like
you're having a lot of worries, but you feel on
edge if anyone says something to you, you know, sort
of if you're feeling on edge, you might snap at them. Um.
You know that can be signs that a person is
(06:15):
experiencing their anxiety more so physically, UM, And to your point.
We do think that it is caused by changes in
the brain chemistry, whether a person has experienced trauma and
now that part of their brain that's responsible for fear,
the amygdala is now hyperactive, right, it's seeing everything is
a potential threat, and that can come from the way
(06:38):
that a person's environment conditioned how they experience things. Um
And so if you or person it's you know, goes
to see a psychiatrist. That's why we offer medication to
treat anxiety, because we we do think that it is
ultimately a change that occurred in the brain, whether it
happened because of the environment, if you grew up with
(06:59):
a lot of trauma, uh or violence, abuse, or like
some people they develop it later in life because you know,
they're who knows, they're constantly like trying to be perfect
and realizing that's not possible to do, and maybe they
develop a little bit of anxiety they're worried about, you know,
am I going to be successful or not? Um. So,
anxiety is very common. It affects about like I think
(07:21):
nineteen million people or sorry, it's like forty million people,
nine percent of the population. It's very very common, and
it's treatable. So it's common and it's treatable. So there
could be an instance where you're totally in a situation
where you're out and I don't know, you're a social event,
and you can absolutely have an anxiety attack. Yes, I think.
(07:45):
Kem and Love talked about that too, like when he
does on the basketball court and he felt like all
of a sudden he couldn't catch his breath, um, and
he kind of went through some of the example like
some of the symptoms he described. So yes, you can
absolutely experienced because of anxiety, a moment where out of
the blue you have a panic attack. And a panic
(08:07):
attack can be something like I can't catch your breath,
feeling like you need to get out of there, to
your heart racing really quickly, and feeling like you want
to die. And for some people they go to the
emergency room because they think something's wrong with that their heart.
They think like they're really dying. I had a confession.
I smoked some bad we one time, and I definitely
think I had a panic attack. It was it was
(08:28):
it was crazy. I thought I was gonna die, just
so you know about right, I thought I thought it
was over. I was telling my cousin. While I hear
my money and everything, I'm like, just make sure my
mom straighten and everybody's good. Um. I. But I say
that because like just coming just being a black man,
(08:48):
coming from you know where we come from. You know,
I would think it would be obvious that we would
experience some type of anxiety because there's so many things
that are against us in so many predicament that we
UM you know, put ourselves in um either voluntary or involuntarily. UM.
And it's just like you just never know. And just
(09:09):
watching what's going on in the world today, and you know,
we're in the middle of a pandemic and it's just
like a lot of people don't know. You know, there's
no certainty right now. You know, things changed by the day. UM.
You know, you definitely don't want to watch the news
too much because you'll really be out of it. Does
that heighten the anxiety rate? Like this? Does that make
(09:32):
you know for more people to experience that? And and
what it's something that they can do if they're experiencing
anxiety because they don't know how they're gonna make ends meet,
they don't know if they're still gonna have their job.
They don't know if they're still gonna be able to
do the things that they would normally do it And
also just sitting inside the house and not really knowing
(09:55):
if it's okay to be out and mingle. You know,
Christmas is about to come up. It's gonna be a
little we ye this year because we don't even know
if we can have family over and those things. So
people being a distance from their family and distance from
their you know, their loved ones, I'm quite sure that
calls us some type of anxiety. Yeah, I'm so glad
you asked this, um, because it gives an opportunity here
(10:17):
to really normalize again the experience of anxiety. So I guess, um,
to your first question, like, yes, during these times, people
are experiencing higher levels of anxiety depression. And there are
a lot of surveys that people have done, you know,
since the beginning of the pandemic. Um, and when they
look at this, you know, this point in this year
(10:39):
and compare it to the years before, people have said
that they experienced more symptoms of anxiety and depression now
than the previous year. Like at the same time, so
we are under a lot of stress. And to your point,
like the uncertainty is a big part of it. Um
And and so my advice to a person who's experiencing
constant worries or that physical anxiety that I talked about
(11:02):
the name of the game is really to like distress UM.
And destressing means doing things like exercising UM, doing things
like not using alcohol or substances to cope. Really try
and like limit that. Culturally we think, not me. But
when I say we, I mean us that we think
that alcohol and weed and these things they actually relieve stress.
(11:26):
So I just wanted to let you know that. So
when you say that, I know it's gonna be a
lot of people like, oh, that's not working for me.
I get that a lot, you know. I get get
patients to come in and say, well, when I smoke weed,
it helps me feel calm, It helps to stress, really
relieve stress. But it's almost like a band aid, right,
It doesn't undo what's really under It makes me feel better,
(11:48):
but it doesn't take away was really there. So exercising
is going to be important, getting that sunlight, getting you know,
getting out and walking during the day, it's going to
be very important. And staying connected with your loved ones
I know we're using screens a lot, but you know,
I have a new baby and we've set up different things,
Like you know, the first time he ate uh solid food,
(12:10):
we like made it a zoom party, and I mean
that was like a really heartwarming moment. So be creative.
That's the other thing that we have. I think, as
you know, Black people, we know how to create something
out of nothing. So be creative in terms of how
you can connect. And I guess I would also encourage
people to use that anxiety to also inform you what's
(12:33):
really going on. Like here's an example. If someone is
an essential worker and they are worried about let's say
they're driving a bus and they're worried that they don't
have the proper protective equipment and they feel anxious about
their safety. That is good to know. You should feel
anxious about yourself. You should have that feeling. Yes, So
(12:53):
in that case, I would not say, oh, you're so anxious,
go see a doctor and get some medication. No. Talk,
that's experience out. Talk to your loved ones. Is this
a normal reaction to what's happening? Is this a rational fear? Yes,
it is, And then you can get to start making
a plan. So anxiety can sometimes be useful to tell
you what's really going on. It's it's almost like it's
(13:14):
almost like a gauge. It's almost like something that came
with you from prehistoric times when we was like you know,
Dodds and say with two tigers and all that stuff,
Like you know what danger is. But now danger can
be you know, you can read some on the internet
or see something you know that you're not accustomed to
see seeing that makes you feel anxious. The crazy thing
(13:36):
for me is I'm always been big on making the
right decisions and just handling like being the commerce person
in the room, and what I did experience, um, whenever
I was anxious, especially in my teenage days. It's always
I can know the right decision, but I always made
the wrong decision when I was anxious. I can know
(13:57):
exactly what I need to be doing, but if I
was as anxious, always made the wrong, the wrong decision
based on what I was feeling. And to me, I
just used to wonder like, wow, you know, I started
exercising my mind, reading more, um, taking care of myself
health wise, you know, because I had to start drinking
more water because at one point. You know, it's crystal
(14:18):
every day for me, you know what I'm saying. So
that wasn't working. And um, when I started like to
to to really invest in my health and and investing
you know, just uh, taking time to do things. It's
funny that you saving like just getting out and walking
because my life was so hustle hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle
(14:39):
that you know, it wasn't until recently that I just
would get out and just you know, enjoy the devrees
and and look at some trees. And you know why
I'm helding my business. But the calm everything down that
did so much for me, and they it actually gave me, um,
you know, just a whole another playing field of thinking
because now my mind is clear and having mourning rituals
(15:01):
as real and I tell like a lot of my
friends and people that you know that I that I know, um,
you know, morning rituals are real, Like they help you
bring the anxiety down, to help you, um, just be
on point. And they look at you like they like
you're crazy because it's like, who's gonna do that every morning?
But it's almost like you have to because your your
mind is almost like a computer, you know, you have
(15:21):
to update every day. And I just wonder how we
go about explaining to the culture that these are things
that you have to do, um to actually exercise your
mind and put yourself in a better space, because I
think that's the conflict of interest. I even heard Solomagne
when he came out and say he did therapy, like
that was a big one for me, because I don't
(15:43):
know if I would have admitted that off the rip me,
you know what I'm saying, like, because you know, it
just sends a different message. But I just was like, wow,
that's that's strong and even for myself, Um, you know,
I had admitted to myself, like you know, I had
to get a morning routine, meet Jeezy like you yeah,
straight up in the morning routine I had before that
(16:03):
before I knew I needed a morning routine. Wasn't a
morning routine, you know, because at one point, you know,
in my career, I was waking up at five six
o'clock in the evening and going to party all day
and and doing it all over again, and then wondering
why I'm in the same place and I'm going through
the same things because I'm putting all these toxices in
my body and I'm not working out, and I'm doing
(16:24):
all these things, and I'm just wondering why I'm so
stressed and why why my why my skin is you know,
it's not clear, and my my you know, I'm looking
on TV and myself and my eyes or yellow and
I'm like, oh my god. So as soon as I
got myself together, I just started really seeing that, you know,
the the little anxiety that I had, it was so
much easier to deal with. And I think talking to
(16:46):
you is just like to explain to the culture, like,
you know, it's okay to not be okay, you know
what I'm saying, It's okay to um ask questions. It's
okay to be concerned about your mental health. And I
had a friend who I loved dearly. You know, he
was definitely a big part of my career and uh,
(17:07):
you know, rest is soul Secure Stewart. When he committed suicide,
I couldn't under like, I couldn't. I didn't understand that.
And I was with the guy. He was so full
of energy, you know, just just he was just so
he had the gift, you know, he had the it factor.
And he was always happy, and he was always you know,
(17:29):
just out going, you know, very talented, but out going,
and his energy was infectious. And I just remember when
I got the call, I was like, how did I
miss that? How did I not know somebody so close
to me was going through something so real in a
mental state that I couldn't put him to the side
and be like, yo, you can talk to me about anything.
And then he would go that far and you know,
(17:49):
you could save anybody from anything but themselves. But it
just it made me take the people around me more seriously,
Like if my sister is going through something, I might
talk to and I call her back later that night
like yo, so you know, how are you feeling, and
just you know, go through the whole thing to get
her to open up a little bit more. And I
even have you know, friends now that I might call
(18:09):
out of the blue and just checking them because they
say you gotta check on your strong your strong friends.
But I mean just for the culture, like how do
we deal with that mystique of not wanting people to
know that we go through things and not end up
in places like that, Like how do we get out
of that mindset of you know, I don't want anybody
to think that I'm weak. Yeah, I mean I think
(18:31):
you know, first of all, like I think it's it's
powerful that you've shared here your experience of losing a
friend tragically to suicide. I think we don't talk about
that at all really in our community. And September was
Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and in in in sort of
that that month, I was like digging more into research
(18:53):
and and and learned that our young black youth, the
rates of suicide have have grown over the last twenty
years when you compare the same age too, let's say
white white boys or young people, where that number has
sort of leveled off. So I think what that speaks
to in the point also that you're picking up on
is that in our community we haven't really talked about
(19:16):
what's going on enough. And it's not our fault. Like
I don't want to be like, oh, you know, black
people get it together. There's a lot of reasons behind it.
UM Dr Joy de Grew and I'm probably butchering her
last name, but the group UM is a social worker
who has studied what she calls post traumatic slavery syndrome,
and so she points out a lot of this um
(19:38):
tendency that we have that we have to be strong.
It comes back from the trauma that's been passed down
from slavery for example. Um, with that behavior was important,
it saved it saved someone for example, but then it
got passed down before you know it. You know, that's
sort of what we think when you say black people
were strong, Right, that's what we think. Um. So that's
(20:00):
an important I think person and her work I want
to uplift. But I think we just gotta talk and
be honest. That vulnerability, when you could share what you're
really feeling, it it lightens the burden. Right, My burden
is not for me to carry alone. If I can
share it, it lightens my load. But then it also
can lighten the load of someone else. Right. They may say, dang,
(20:20):
I'm glad you said that because I've been dealing with anxiety. Right.
I think I think these conversations and coming from black men,
like being started by black men, I think completely just
levels the playing field when we think about our community. Right.
I think if black men are taking the lead on
these conversations, it will only continue to get better. UM.
(20:43):
And I think we also have to again know our
history in the past, our engagement with psychiatry was not willful.
So what I mean by that is like in the sixties,
black men who were out front in terms of like
civil rights, they would get picked up and sent off
to the psych ward where they would stay. It's crazy
you said that, because I have an auntie who I
(21:05):
love dearly, like she's my ride to die. And I
just remember at one time, because she had the tumor,
there was the size of a grapefruit in her head,
and she had the surgery and she was better, but
she lost some senses and she like she will cuss
you out on the drop. I mean, like Charle Mayne
matter he went to a port, she gave him hell um.
(21:29):
But I just remember, you know, when she would getting
her things and go through her motions. They were always
talking about sending it to this place in Georgia called Jacksonville,
which we all just knew was the crazy House. And
we will all be like, oh, man, like you don't
want to, like it was just this thing. You didn't
want to go to the crazy house. So with that stigma,
(21:50):
even for myself growing up, it's like even if I
thought I was crazy, I wouldn't tell nobody else crazy
because I don't want to go to the crazy house.
And and I grew up just thinking and owing that,
And even when I was in my head about things,
I would never say, um, how I truly felt to anyone,
you know, because in in my family, you know, you
(22:10):
had to be strong and if you had problems, you
just gotta deal with them, and you don't. You don't
talk um at the dinner table, or you didn't need
the dinner at the dinner table together anyway, but you
don't talk at the dinner table about what's going on?
What can you do? And if your favorite uncle, you know,
he can't really give you an advice because he's going
through his own thing. And when we see people in
our communities they have real issues and real problems, we
(22:34):
look down on them and we don't offer help, and
we look at them, you know, like they're you know,
like they're crazy. And I just feel like growing up
that way, you know, put me in a place where
I didn't really talk about what I was thinking of
what I had going on the side of me because
I didn't think it was regular. I didn't think it
was normal. So now that I hear more of it,
it opens me up to the conversation. And I think
(22:56):
that would be real for us to take the lead
on that, because we gotta know another generation coming behind
us that you know, dealing with way more than we
ever dealt with. You know, just the way things are
coming at them. It's crazy because I remember at one point,
like just my transition from you know, the streets into music,
and I didn't really understand and know everything, so it
(23:17):
was really difficult for me. And I just remember these
long spouts when I finally got on because I couldn't
bring everybody that I wanted to bring with me, and
the ones that I did bring with me, it just
they just always found a way to make it like
not working, be crazy and like now we at odds.
And I just remember going through this this long spell
of what I didn't know then was depression because I
(23:39):
was just mad. I had all this money and all
this fame, and I was just mad about every time
when I say everything, everything, I was agitated everything I
got up every morning and it was the same thing.
I was just mad. I was just I was just
upset and angry. And I went through that for a while,
and so one day, I just said, Yo, you gotta really,
(24:00):
you know, you gotta really think about the things that
you're grateful for and think about the things that you
know that that has happened in your life for the better.
And I started to slowly pull myself out of that.
The thing that I'm trying to explain to you is
I didn't know I was depressed. I just thought that
was life, you know. And I'm thinking, you know, you know,
(24:20):
you smoke something, you go out, you drink, you have
a good time. You know, tomorrow be better, and you
just the more party and you do and the more
success you have, you think that that's gonna help you.
And my my my point in cases, you know, and
I want you to you know, timing on that, just
like we think where we come from that if we
are successful and we make it out and then we
(24:41):
do better than we thought we would do, that we
won't have any problems and we won't be depressed, and
we won't be anxious, and we won't worry about anything
because this money and the success is gonna wipe the
whole slate clean. Yeah, I mean, look what you're describing
there is again something that um I hear a lot,
And it is the reason why I my work to
(25:01):
social media, because I want people to hear conversations like
these and and I want it to be normal. UM.
People in our community, we don't identify with that word depression.
And you know, I say, like it took me going
to med school accepting that I wanted to end up
being a psychiatrist. I didn't go to med school and
be a psychiatrist like you know, but I found this
(25:22):
was a field that drew me UM. And that's where
I learned this terminology and accepted that maybe this is
something that UM could be going on in my life
or or the life of the people that I love.
So depression is not always a sadness. And again, I
think when we think about success and having like a
(25:43):
life that's better than others as the reason why we
can't be depressed, we miss out on the fact that
we are entitled to our feelings and our experience. Because
I hear that a lot, we'll say my situation isn't
as bad and so therefore it's not depression, or therefore
it's not you know, it could be worse. That's fine,
(26:04):
but it takes away from the fact that a person
might be feeling like they can't sleep at night, their
appetites gone, their concentrations off, they feel hopeless, they feel
like they don't want to live all of which if
you came into my office. If a person walks into
my office with that, I probably would diagnose him with depression.
It's not always that sadness. It's not always that stuff
(26:26):
you see on a commercial where the person looks all blue.
You can be functioning very well, but at the end
of the day feel down inside, feel like there's no hope,
and feel like you're going through the motions. And I
think again, the more conversations we have about it, the
more that I think people will be open to maybe
this is depression and I'm just functioning because that's what
(26:47):
I know how to do. We know how to grind.
I'm done with that narrative. You know what they say?
All else feels go get you some money, yeah, some play?
But now, um okay, I'm I'm a guy, I'm a
black man. You know, I have a lot of integrity.
I have, uh, you know, a lot of things going
(27:09):
for myself. I come into your office and I say hey,
Do I say hey, I'm depressed or do I say, Hey,
I have a lot of things going on in my
life right now. I'm quite sure the millions of millions
of black men out here do. How do I take
that that armor off to come in like just tell you, like, hey,
(27:30):
I'm really going through something right now, and I don't
understand what is happening with my thought process, and I'm
in a place to where I think that there's no
one else for me to talk to, so I want
to seek some professional help. How do how does that
do that? That sound cool? Yeah? I love that question. Um,
(27:53):
I think I would. I would start by saying, if
you're at that point, if a person at the point
where they have, you know, talk to talked over what
they're thinking, experiencing with people that they trust to love,
I always say that's a good place to go. You know,
everybody should have a core group of friends or just
a few people that they can have real conversations with,
like you know, real conversations where but the problem is
(28:16):
the problem is like the friends are depressed too, so
we are everybody Like you try to tell them like, man,
I'm going through my own thing. Man, I got you
know what I mean? You know, I guess in that case,
I would want you to use that core as like
the sounding board, and that's not for them to like
(28:37):
help you with the problem necessarily, but just to be like, yeah,
I think this is something you should get help for. Right. Um,
if you once you walk into the office, your job
at that point is just to start by saying why
you came in, And it doesn't have to be so
like organized and me. You don't have to say like
I've been feeling the press. It could be you know, look,
(28:58):
I'm here because I don't know what else to do.
And a good psychiatrist, a good therapist, will use what
you're sharing as a way to sort of begin to
have a conversation and the conversation will eventually go into
symptoms like that will tell me more about is this
depression that needs to be treated with the medication? Is
this anxiety? Well, we'll just sort of sort of gently
(29:20):
walk through your history and talk about really everything, not
not just you came in for, but even things that
maybe it happened in your past that you might be like,
what does that have to do with anything? But it
gives a full picture of who you want that we
can know how we're gonna you know, move forward with treatment.
So just walk in and talk. Okay, yeah, you know.
(29:42):
The thing is you come in you so um, you're
so exciting, like your anxious because you want to tell
the therapists everything, and once sit in, you first sit
down or not because you reserve um. And I think
a lot of times that's what it is, because you know,
it's almost like when you go see your lawyer if
you're in trouble. You want to tell them, you know,
(30:03):
everything you want them to know, and the first sit
down because you're, yeah, you gotta give me out of this.
So it's almost like, um, the same thing when you
come into the office, and I think them knowing that
they don't have to, you know, say everything in the
first visit helps as well. And then also ain't it
safe to say that talking to friends it's not therapy
(30:27):
because I just want to be clear because I you know,
because you've got some friends you talk to, they can
tell you everything about everything what you need to be doing,
and they do with the exact opposite, and they hypocrite
and and you know, give you all this advice and
you go out here in your life and you try
to do these things and you're already in the back
of this and then it just makes you worse. I
think we should think about our friends and loved ones
(30:48):
as like support, um, but not at all. Therapists not
people who should be you know, going through all of
our problems with us. You know, to think about your
therapist is that they you know, everything that you share
the stays there, which can be really helpful because you know,
sometimes you have a friendship and it goes sour and
then with all your information going to be right. Yeah,
(31:10):
that's good. But those friendships are important because again they
can sort of serve as that that core group that
can keep you in a place where you aren't a
person isn't dipping down to like right, And so I
guess you want to make sure that a person has
at least a few friends where they can be a
little open with um. But yeah, you're right. They should
(31:33):
not be people that you're going to solve challenges and
issues in your life because they're not right and and
and nine times out of ten is going to be
very biased. You think, like you should you know, if
you're going through a breakup, let's go get them, you know,
And you're like, right, like my uncle used to tell me.
(31:55):
He's like, yeah, he used to give me all this advice.
And he's also tell me like, man, you ain't never
get out of here. Just gonna give it up, you know,
go jo An army is something It's not gonna happen.
And every time I see him now, just look at them,
be like, what's up up? So I knew back then
anyone telling me what I said is what I said,
be knowing. But I know now mental health? How does
(32:15):
one understand that he could have some type of mental
um situation? And how does one go about that when
they don't have the resources or the finances to actually
just walk in someone and say, hey, I need to
talk to someone. How how does that work? If a
(32:37):
person is interested in getting treatment and they you know,
are curious, they hurt this conversation and they're like, maybe
I do want to get some help, Maybe I want
to talk to someone. UM. I think the first thing
to know is that it's not your job to identify
exactly what's going on. It just might be that, you know,
you feel a little off for other people are noticing it,
(32:59):
and now you want to try to do something. UM.
I would always recommend starting with like a Google search, UM,
you know, look for uh psychiatrist or therapists that are
in your area that are you know, accept Medicaid or SEPT.
You know, a sliding scale, which is really that's a
(33:19):
term for M They make special rates based on what
a person can afford to pay. Yeah. Yeah, so start
with that. You can just start you know, are there
psychiatrists in my area that have sliding scale? I don't know.
I'm not the best Google person, but yeah, you can
try that. UM. And then if you live in an
area where there are academic institutions, so like a university
(33:44):
of hospital. For example, in New York we have like
n y U, Columbia, Cornell. Those UM universities usually have residents,
and those clinics have appointments, and they're usually much cheaper
than seeing a psychiatrist who completely done with residency. UM.
So I always recommend going there. The good thing is
(34:05):
there on top of like the latest and they you know,
they follow evidence based treatment. There's a team that usually
discusses each patient. So you may end up seeing an
expert even though you're seeing a resident, because that resident
may go back and talk about, you know, a case
with someone who has written articles or journals about um
(34:26):
whatever issue of persons presenting for so I would recommend
trying that. And then also you know word of mouth,
like if you have a friend who shares that this
is where I go to get care, you can always
start start there. But I guess knowing that the first
step is it's it's pretty hard. So take that as
a sign that, like, I really need to do this
(34:46):
and just focus on one thing at a time. So
so that would be your first line of combat m
to to actually go in and sit down and have
a conversation one step at a time. It took me
a long time. I'm mean, I've been in my own therapy. Uh,
it took me a long time to even make that
first step, which was the phone call to a name
(35:08):
that was given. And I think a part of it
is because for the same thing that we've been talking about,
you have periods where you feel like, you know, okay,
that I'm better. That was maybe that was just one
time that I felt right okay, and then it keeps happening.
So each time you think about it, I would say
that's a sign to take another step to try. I've
(35:32):
done a lot better with anxiety for the simple fact
that you know, I understand what it is, and you know,
fears when you let you know, something outside of your
body control you in the situation. And I feel like, Um,
for me, you know, I just exercised my brain enough
to know, Okay, I know this is just a feeling.
I know this is something that I don't need, you know,
(35:53):
to deal with. But how do you know it's to
the point when you when you might need medication? Like
how do you know? Because I have other people that
I know that it's experience anxiety, and they might you know,
walk out of a room and go outside of the
air and you know, do all these different things and
then they come back and they're fine. And you've got
some people that just gotta go take it in and
lay down and you know, do their whole you know,
routine to kind of get over it. But like, how
(36:15):
do you know when it's to a point that you
you should really be trying to get some help, like
this is this is bad, this is this is terrible. Yeah,
So usually I talk about like severity of symptoms. So, um,
you know, if a person has anxiety, that's just me again,
maybe they worry a lot but they can manage. They know,
(36:35):
like you said they can't exercise or that they're like
mental conditioning. They're like, okay, you're worried this, this will
be over soon. Focus on what you're doing. But if
a person starts having panic attacks where again they're out
of nowhere, can't catch their breath, their hearts beating quickly,
they feel like they got to escape. If that's happening, often,
I often would recommend a person either get into a
(36:59):
therapy that they're meeting every week with their therapists UM
and seeing if that can help reduce those symptoms, or
they see a psychiatrist and they started medication UM. So
the severity of symptoms is one, like you're just having
a lot of symptoms and they're hard to manage. The
other part is if it's affecting your functioning. So if
(37:19):
a person normally can go to work on time, they
don't have problems with sleep, they don't have problems in
their relationship or with their children, but now their anxiety
is starting to make them snap at their significant other
over nothing right like I just asked for a glass
of water. Why am I getting yelled at? Or you
know they're being really like short with their children. Their
(37:43):
children are trying to understand why they're showing up to
work late. This is now affecting your functioning, and so
for that person, I would recommend seeing a professional and
really considering medications so that the symptoms can get better
under control. And then maybe you go to therapy in
addition to that, to explore a bit more about what's happening,
(38:03):
um that could be making the symptoms come up the
way they are. Well, let's see, it's crazy too, because
you know when you grow up, you just you see
people and you just think this is so perfect and
they just got everything together and and then and then
you hear these stories about you know, these their mental
health issues and you're like wow, Like I never when
a million years with the thought, Um, you know, Charlemagne
(38:25):
was one, like I said, when he said therapy, I
was like, WHOA, I don't know, Like I'm not I
might have would have went, but I don't think I
would have let nobody but people like himself, you know,
opening the doors for us to um come out and
really speak on it because we have an empathy and
we're helping others through our trial and our trial and
our trauma and UM. Going back to what you said
(38:48):
before about trauma, I've experienced my share of it. And
when you go sit down with your therapist again psychologists,
and they're asking these questions about some of your up
ring in your childhood, what happened with your mother and
father already see all together, and they're asking these questions
to just kind of get a a setting, if you will,
(39:09):
of what you've been through. They could have triggered things,
or they're asking that to put things together to understand
how you're thinking these days. When a person is UM,
like going in to talk with a therapist, psychologists, or
psychiatrists around UM issues from their past, trauma is a
can really lead to a lot of issues, right. It
(39:30):
can lead to anxiety, It can lead to depression. It
can lead to a person developing like a substance problem
where they are using UM substances not just to code,
but they really have a dependency like ah, they're addicted
to it UM. And so when when I'm seeing someone
who comes in and they have a significant history of trauma,
(39:51):
I'm thinking a lot about how much that's informing the
way that they live, how they experience the world. UM.
You know, pe TSD. I know we throw that word
around a lot, but people suffer UM with that condition
because it's not just that UM they're having flashbacks or nightmares.
They also really can struggle a lot again with depression
(40:13):
and anxiety. And we know that that condition is not UM.
It's not so easily treatable. What I mean by that
is it's it's not easy for us to sort of
treat with the same medication like I'll you know, I'll
care for people and I have to tell them like, look,
I'm treating UM your depression and anxiety, but you really
are going to have to get into a trauma informed therapy,
(40:35):
and that trauma informed therapy is probably going to help
you more than this medication because the way that trauma
affects some people, and not everyone who experienced trauma develops
a disorder or symptoms like depression or anxiety. But for
those who do, it's it's a it's a more complex
condition than you know, straight straight up depression or straight
(40:58):
straight up anxiety. Um. Wow, So so you're telling me
postraumatic stresses like one of the worst ones in terms
of just comparing the two. Yeah, Because people can experience
a lot of symptoms of both. So they might be
really really down and have low energy and problems with
concentration and their moods low. That would kind of be
depressed depression. But then they also may be really anxious,
(41:21):
can't leave their house without feeling afraid that they might
get you know, mugged or whatever it is that sort
of will happen around the trauma um some people, and
it doesn't happen as often, but some people, their trauma
can can cause them to hallucinate, to like hear voices,
um to sometimes think that they're seeing things that aren't there.
(41:42):
And again, I think it just speaks to how again,
like you you brought up like the question about mental health,
like our brains can change because of trauma. Our brains
can change in a way that makes us have these
these symptoms, these disorders because our brain is just like
the their organs in our bodies, right and they it's
(42:03):
not going to just stay perfect. We have to care
for it. We have to um make sure that we
are are getting help when things seem different, and just
the same way that we would if you had I
don't know, diabetes, or you if you if you hurt
your leg or something like you gotta nurse it back
to a good place before you just begin to walk
on it. It's crazy as you say that, because I
(42:24):
would assume I would have I don't like to assume,
but I would imagine, especially this younger generation of millennials,
a lot of them really experienced postraumatic stress just just
because of the circumstances and the and the things they've
been brought up in. And it's just like, you know,
they've been um desensitized to a lot of things that
(42:47):
normally wouldn't fly. But like now it's just like the
way they have to move militant, the way they have
to think, um, the way they're seeing, you know, the
appears you know, being killed left and right, and what
you're watching going on on the racial side, and you know,
all this racial tension and all these different things. And
for you to say that could be one of the
worst ones, I would imagine that that's what they experienced
(43:09):
the most. So how does that work, Because now you
have a whole generation that you know possibly can have,
you know, mental health issues, just you know, based on
the way the world is set up for them right now,
and they're and they're young enough not to want to
go get help. It's just like you just grow up
and you know, you just go on living life and
you think this is normal and you know, not not
(43:30):
to take nothing away. But I almost feel like that's
why they indulge in more, you know, different types of
experimental drugs than we did when we was coming up.
You know. It's just like you know, I you know,
and when you start thinking serb and all these different things,
it's just like there has to be a state where
you just want to be numb because your mind is
just like, you know, just giving you so many, you know,
(43:51):
just different emotions, and you just want to get into
a place where you can control it. And I just
think that's crazy because it's just like they're not enough
therapist and psychologists in the world for that. That definitely
breaks my heart in as you describe it, I'm like,
I'm shaking my head because it's I think you're you're
absolutely onto something. When we think about our young people,
(44:12):
um and just how society has really just shifted to
something that you know, I mean, it's it's never been
perfect for for for for black folk for sure, but
I think it's it's at a point now where it's
just it's it's a lot to sort of take in.
And even if we just think about how much information
they have thrown at them, and we think about like,
(44:33):
you know, back when I was in high school, you
just have to worry about making it through like the
lunch period and that was it. Get home. But now
the lunch period is like you open up the phone
and there it is. You know, So they have a
lot more that they are being exposed to, a lot
more that they're navigating. And I think when you talk
about this culture of like they're using a lot of
other substances. They're not just smoking weed. They're like sorry, Molly,
(44:56):
and that's all this other stuff and it's just and
you're so many young people dive overdose it. So, um
my heart goes out to them. I think the media
thought I have is again I think that's why parents, Um,
it's gonna be so important to have that dinner table conversation,
bring everyone around the table. Encourage times where you are
(45:16):
putting the phone away. Try to start early with it.
You know, don't be trying to take the phone away
from your kid. If they're like a senior in high school,
it might be no try to set that up early
where it's a part of that. They know when we
come together to eat, this is the time when we
are connecting. I need to know what's going on. I
need to know how to help you. UM. And you know,
(45:39):
parents look for signs signs of depressions, and young people
it looks different. They can actually look more upset, angry, irritable.
They kind of shut down. UM. They may not just
sort of look sad or um, you know, kind of
express it. They may just really start to seem very
upset and angry. And that can be a sign that
(45:59):
you're trying all this experiencing depression and you want to
act quickly. You want to not just say get over it.
You have a roof over your head or what do
you upset it out right? Definitely definitely what my daddy
told me. You got no bills, go ahead, no. So
(46:20):
I was just saying, it's important for us to um
stop undo some of the stuff that our parents did
to us. We gotta we gotta recognize that you gotta
validate your kids feelings. I'm gonna get you a lot
further than just saying get over it because you have
a roof of your head children are dying. We see
that from the data. They're dying from suicide. Like I
(46:41):
talked about before, people are hitting their breaking point. There's
so many things that happened in this world that are
back to back, back to back, back to back, So
I can only imagine what that does to someone's mental health.
I definitely appreciate the insight. UM, I definitely appreciate the
Jews who dropped today because I just feel like, you know,
(47:03):
for even someone like myself, I just want to know that,
you know, no matter what my people going through, that
there's help out there somewhere. And and and speaking of that,
like in your practice, do you see more African American
males and women? Didn't you do any other nationalities or racist?
I'm seeing more. I get a lot of people who
(47:23):
reach out also, like by email and and you know,
through social media, people are interested in finding finding therapists.
And I guess I also want to just throw it
out there, we also need more black people to go
into these fields. So I want to encourage people to
do how many years to be a psychiatrist? Now, a
psychiatrist is a long time. Um, you know, you gotta
(47:46):
go through college and med school, but look, a person
can be a therapist and help, like help so many
people and that doesn't take as long and they can
earn it even living too. So I think if anyone
out there is like, hey, this might be a career,
I want to try look into it because we need
more people that look like us to provide care for sure.
(48:06):
And as of now, are you doing more um? Are
you doing more zoom sessions? How does that? How does
that work as it's still the same intimate state. Do
you feel like you're getting the best out of people
when they're looking at you? Because I feel like I'm
getting a session right now, so I'm just asking. But yeah,
I mean, like like most psychiatrists or therapists, the visits
(48:30):
are virtual. Now, um, you know, I think it doesn't
take away from the day when we will all be
able to kind of you know, be in the same
spaces and not be afraid of getting teck. Um. But
I'll tell you, I'm definitely getting emotion from people. People
are you know, feeling relief once they finally share what's
been on their mind. So it's it's I think it's
(48:51):
just as helpful and it's keeping us all safe too.
In terms of you know, not getting sick from the virus.
Love to hear Dr just and I thank you for
stopping by the recessing podcast, dropping these gyms and these jewels.
Is there any last words anything you want to bless us?
What about mental health? Any anything you want to tell
(49:14):
us about you know where we should get some treatment
if you want to find you I don't know, like,
what are we doing here? Yeah? It so you. Thank
you well, thanks for having me um. People can find
me on social media ask Dr Jazz. I'm not accepting
new patients at the moment, but I always encourage people
to send me a message. I may start a group
(49:34):
or two because I know people need that and that's
also another great way to sort of get started um
with it. And I just want to encourage people. If
it's on your mind to seek help, please seek it.
Do not wait, don't worry about what people think, because
at the end of the day, it's your life. You've
only got one and you've got to take care of
your mental health. So that that would be all I
want to say to people, And thank you again, Thank
(49:57):
you so much. Dr Jess. You've been amazing. You've been amazing.
I feel like I got a free session, so next
time I look you up on line. All right, thank
you so much. Thanks for listening to The Recession Podcast
by Jeez, a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio.
(50:19):
But more podcasts visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production
of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy,
Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is
my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my
(00:22):
music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country
the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now
strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show,
I will speak the powerful people from all walks of
life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope.
(00:43):
In each episode will feature a sample of a song
from my new album, The Recession Too. So without furtherdo
let's begin The Recessing Podcast. Let's get it. Today's conversation
is about mental health, something that many people don't like
(01:04):
to talk about. My guess is Dr Jessica Clemens, better
known as Dr Jess. She's an expert who was working
to reduce stigma, especially in the black community. A lot
of us, me included, have personal struggles that we've had
to deal with. Those challenges helped me to create my
new song, Therapy for my Soul. Been listening to my
(01:26):
thoughts and lately I've been concerned, feel like my soul
on fire. Let that motherfucker burned. Ain't nobody gave me
shall wait my mother fucking turn turn. I had a
few hits, even, I had a few misses. That comes
in the kitchen't even boke a few dishes, street like
scarved me? So neat therapy, therapy. Here's my conversation with
(01:51):
Dr Jess on the Recessing Podcast. Motherfucker burned, Ain't nobody
gave me shall wait my motherfucking turn turning? Dr Jess,
how you doing. I'm great, Thanks for having me, No,
thanks for being here, and welcome to the Recession Podcast.
It's something I've been doing to um, just bring a
(02:12):
lot of awareness to issues that I thought there was
going on in our world today. You know, we got
a whole pandemic going on, and we just got a
lot of things going on racism. And I hear that
you a specialist in mental health. Yes, that would be correct.
I'm a psychiatrist. Oh that's even better. So yeah, so
(02:36):
I consider myself, Yeah, an expert in the in this
area for sure. Yeah, so psychiatrists and therapist. Before we
get into this break it down, Okay, So I'd like
to tell people that psychiatrist is someone who they went
to med school, so like I'm a you know, I'm
a medical doctor. UM. The main difference between a psychiatrist
(02:58):
and a therapist is the psych chiatrists went to med
school and they prescribe medication. The fest is someone that
also is very well trained. UM, also an expert in
mental health. But you go and you talk, you talk
more about you know, what's going on in your life. UM.
I do both because the way I was trained, I
prescribe medication, but I also do therapy too, so it's
(03:21):
psychic and both. Boss. You know, it's crazy coming up.
I used to, UM. You know, when you hear like
psychiatrists or therapist, you think that something was really wrong
with you, and you didn't think you can get any help.
And it wasn't until my older years that I started,
you know, when my adult years did I started to
(03:43):
really realize that like you know, um, yeah, there could
be things wrong that you might need help with. One
would be as cool as I think I am, and
as cool as I have been for all these years,
I wouldn't have never thought that I would have suffered anxiety. UM.
(04:04):
And it was coming up from where you know we
come from you don't really get these terminologies and you
don't understand. You just think something's wrong because you already
got postraumatic stress for what's going on on the block
and the things that are happening around you. And once
I got out of that and I started getting into
my adulthood and start you know, doing different things with
my life, I still would, you know, have these feelings
(04:27):
before certain things, And I'm like, Wow, why do I
feel like that? And you know, it's almost like you're
too cool to say it because you don't, you know,
the whole thing is, nothing's wrong with me. I'm good.
I'm gonna be straight. You know, it's almost like a
weakness to admit that, you know, you have things that
go on in your head. When when when certain things
(04:49):
happen to certain trauma pulls things back up. And my
thing to you is, can we talk about what anxiety is? Yeah?
I mean I guess I would start by saying what
you described about. You know this um sort of like
coming to the realization that hey, you might be experience anxiety.
(05:09):
I think that's really normal. I hear a lot of
that when I'm caring for people in the office. Also
through social media, I use that to try to get
conversations going, Like to your point, these conversations haven't been
happening in our community for a number of reasons, and
we may touch on some of that, but what you're
describing is absolutely like exactly what I hear in the office.
(05:32):
And so anxiety itself, we consider it a disorder. UM.
But if you think about sort of what what you're experiencing,
you're experiencing fear, right, whether it's constant worries, like you know,
I'm worried that if I don't do this, I won't
get that opportunity, or if I go here, I'll get
injured like that. That type of worry is really fear,
(05:54):
and it can also manifest physically, so you might you
might not be like some one who's really in your head.
Maybe maybe you're cool, calm, collected, you're not thinking like
you're having a lot of worries, but you feel on
edge if anyone says something to you, you know, sort
of if you're feeling on edge, you might snap at them. Um.
You know that can be signs that a person is
(06:15):
experiencing their anxiety more so physically, UM, And to your point.
We do think that it is caused by changes in
the brain chemistry, whether a person has experienced trauma and
now that part of their brain that's responsible for fear,
the amygdala is now hyperactive, right, it's seeing everything is
a potential threat, and that can come from the way
(06:38):
that a person's environment conditioned how they experience things. Um
And so if you or person it's you know, goes
to see a psychiatrist. That's why we offer medication to
treat anxiety, because we we do think that it is
ultimately a change that occurred in the brain, whether it
happened because of the environment, if you grew up with
(06:59):
a lot of trauma, uh or violence, abuse, or like
some people they develop it later in life because you know,
they're who knows, they're constantly like trying to be perfect
and realizing that's not possible to do, and maybe they
develop a little bit of anxiety they're worried about, you know,
am I going to be successful or not? Um. So,
anxiety is very common. It affects about like I think
(07:21):
nineteen million people or sorry, it's like forty million people,
nine percent of the population. It's very very common, and
it's treatable. So it's common and it's treatable. So there
could be an instance where you're totally in a situation
where you're out and I don't know, you're a social event,
and you can absolutely have an anxiety attack. Yes, I think.
(07:45):
Kem and Love talked about that too, like when he
does on the basketball court and he felt like all
of a sudden he couldn't catch his breath, um, and
he kind of went through some of the example like
some of the symptoms he described. So yes, you can
absolutely experienced because of anxiety, a moment where out of
the blue you have a panic attack. And a panic
(08:07):
attack can be something like I can't catch your breath,
feeling like you need to get out of there, to
your heart racing really quickly, and feeling like you want
to die. And for some people they go to the
emergency room because they think something's wrong with that their heart.
They think like they're really dying. I had a confession.
I smoked some bad we one time, and I definitely
think I had a panic attack. It was it was
(08:28):
it was crazy. I thought I was gonna die, just
so you know about right, I thought I thought it
was over. I was telling my cousin. While I hear
my money and everything, I'm like, just make sure my
mom straighten and everybody's good. Um. I. But I say
that because like just coming just being a black man,
(08:48):
coming from you know where we come from. You know,
I would think it would be obvious that we would
experience some type of anxiety because there's so many things
that are against us in so many predicament that we
UM you know, put ourselves in um either voluntary or involuntarily. UM.
And it's just like you just never know. And just
(09:09):
watching what's going on in the world today, and you know,
we're in the middle of a pandemic and it's just
like a lot of people don't know. You know, there's
no certainty right now. You know, things changed by the day. UM.
You know, you definitely don't want to watch the news
too much because you'll really be out of it. Does
that heighten the anxiety rate? Like this? Does that make
(09:32):
you know for more people to experience that? And and
what it's something that they can do if they're experiencing
anxiety because they don't know how they're gonna make ends meet,
they don't know if they're still gonna have their job.
They don't know if they're still gonna be able to
do the things that they would normally do it And
also just sitting inside the house and not really knowing
(09:55):
if it's okay to be out and mingle. You know,
Christmas is about to come up. It's gonna be a
little we ye this year because we don't even know
if we can have family over and those things. So
people being a distance from their family and distance from
their you know, their loved ones, I'm quite sure that
calls us some type of anxiety. Yeah, I'm so glad
you asked this, um, because it gives an opportunity here
(10:17):
to really normalize again the experience of anxiety. So I guess, um,
to your first question, like, yes, during these times, people
are experiencing higher levels of anxiety depression. And there are
a lot of surveys that people have done, you know,
since the beginning of the pandemic. Um, and when they
look at this, you know, this point in this year
(10:39):
and compare it to the years before, people have said
that they experienced more symptoms of anxiety and depression now
than the previous year. Like at the same time, so
we are under a lot of stress. And to your point,
like the uncertainty is a big part of it. Um
And and so my advice to a person who's experiencing
constant worries or that physical anxiety that I talked about
(11:02):
the name of the game is really to like distress UM.
And destressing means doing things like exercising UM, doing things
like not using alcohol or substances to cope. Really try
and like limit that. Culturally we think, not me. But
when I say we, I mean us that we think
that alcohol and weed and these things they actually relieve stress.
(11:26):
So I just wanted to let you know that. So
when you say that, I know it's gonna be a
lot of people like, oh, that's not working for me.
I get that a lot, you know. I get get
patients to come in and say, well, when I smoke weed,
it helps me feel calm, It helps to stress, really
relieve stress. But it's almost like a band aid, right,
It doesn't undo what's really under It makes me feel better,
(11:48):
but it doesn't take away was really there. So exercising
is going to be important, getting that sunlight, getting you know,
getting out and walking during the day, it's going to
be very important. And staying connected with your loved ones
I know we're using screens a lot, but you know,
I have a new baby and we've set up different things,
Like you know, the first time he ate uh solid food,
(12:10):
we like made it a zoom party, and I mean
that was like a really heartwarming moment. So be creative.
That's the other thing that we have. I think, as
you know, Black people, we know how to create something
out of nothing. So be creative in terms of how
you can connect. And I guess I would also encourage
people to use that anxiety to also inform you what's
(12:33):
really going on. Like here's an example. If someone is
an essential worker and they are worried about let's say
they're driving a bus and they're worried that they don't
have the proper protective equipment and they feel anxious about
their safety. That is good to know. You should feel
anxious about yourself. You should have that feeling. Yes, So
(12:53):
in that case, I would not say, oh, you're so anxious,
go see a doctor and get some medication. No. Talk,
that's experience out. Talk to your loved ones. Is this
a normal reaction to what's happening? Is this a rational fear? Yes,
it is, And then you can get to start making
a plan. So anxiety can sometimes be useful to tell
you what's really going on. It's it's almost like it's
(13:14):
almost like a gauge. It's almost like something that came
with you from prehistoric times when we was like you know,
Dodds and say with two tigers and all that stuff,
Like you know what danger is. But now danger can
be you know, you can read some on the internet
or see something you know that you're not accustomed to
see seeing that makes you feel anxious. The crazy thing
(13:36):
for me is I'm always been big on making the
right decisions and just handling like being the commerce person
in the room, and what I did experience, um, whenever
I was anxious, especially in my teenage days. It's always
I can know the right decision, but I always made
the wrong decision when I was anxious. I can know
(13:57):
exactly what I need to be doing, but if I
was as anxious, always made the wrong, the wrong decision
based on what I was feeling. And to me, I
just used to wonder like, wow, you know, I started
exercising my mind, reading more, um, taking care of myself
health wise, you know, because I had to start drinking
more water because at one point. You know, it's crystal
(14:18):
every day for me, you know what I'm saying. So
that wasn't working. And um, when I started like to
to to really invest in my health and and investing
you know, just uh, taking time to do things. It's
funny that you saving like just getting out and walking
because my life was so hustle hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle
(14:39):
that you know, it wasn't until recently that I just
would get out and just you know, enjoy the devrees
and and look at some trees. And you know why
I'm helding my business. But the calm everything down that
did so much for me, and they it actually gave me, um,
you know, just a whole another playing field of thinking
because now my mind is clear and having mourning rituals
(15:01):
as real and I tell like a lot of my
friends and people that you know that I that I know, um,
you know, morning rituals are real, Like they help you
bring the anxiety down, to help you, um, just be
on point. And they look at you like they like
you're crazy because it's like, who's gonna do that every morning?
But it's almost like you have to because your your
mind is almost like a computer, you know, you have
(15:21):
to update every day. And I just wonder how we
go about explaining to the culture that these are things
that you have to do, um to actually exercise your
mind and put yourself in a better space, because I
think that's the conflict of interest. I even heard Solomagne
when he came out and say he did therapy, like
that was a big one for me, because I don't
(15:43):
know if I would have admitted that off the rip me,
you know what I'm saying, like, because you know, it
just sends a different message. But I just was like, wow,
that's that's strong and even for myself, Um, you know,
I had admitted to myself, like you know, I had
to get a morning routine, meet Jeezy like you yeah,
straight up in the morning routine I had before that
(16:03):
before I knew I needed a morning routine. Wasn't a
morning routine, you know, because at one point, you know,
in my career, I was waking up at five six
o'clock in the evening and going to party all day
and and doing it all over again, and then wondering
why I'm in the same place and I'm going through
the same things because I'm putting all these toxices in
my body and I'm not working out, and I'm doing
(16:24):
all these things, and I'm just wondering why I'm so
stressed and why why my why my skin is you know,
it's not clear, and my my you know, I'm looking
on TV and myself and my eyes or yellow and
I'm like, oh my god. So as soon as I
got myself together, I just started really seeing that, you know,
the the little anxiety that I had, it was so
much easier to deal with. And I think talking to
(16:46):
you is just like to explain to the culture, like,
you know, it's okay to not be okay, you know
what I'm saying, It's okay to um ask questions. It's
okay to be concerned about your mental health. And I
had a friend who I loved dearly. You know, he
was definitely a big part of my career and uh,
(17:07):
you know, rest is soul Secure Stewart. When he committed suicide,
I couldn't under like, I couldn't. I didn't understand that.
And I was with the guy. He was so full
of energy, you know, just just he was just so
he had the gift, you know, he had the it factor.
And he was always happy, and he was always you know,
(17:29):
just out going, you know, very talented, but out going,
and his energy was infectious. And I just remember when
I got the call, I was like, how did I
miss that? How did I not know somebody so close
to me was going through something so real in a
mental state that I couldn't put him to the side
and be like, yo, you can talk to me about anything.
And then he would go that far and you know,
(17:49):
you could save anybody from anything but themselves. But it
just it made me take the people around me more seriously,
Like if my sister is going through something, I might
talk to and I call her back later that night
like yo, so you know, how are you feeling, and
just you know, go through the whole thing to get
her to open up a little bit more. And I
even have you know, friends now that I might call
(18:09):
out of the blue and just checking them because they
say you gotta check on your strong your strong friends.
But I mean just for the culture, like how do
we deal with that mystique of not wanting people to
know that we go through things and not end up
in places like that, Like how do we get out
of that mindset of you know, I don't want anybody
to think that I'm weak. Yeah, I mean I think
(18:31):
you know, first of all, like I think it's it's
powerful that you've shared here your experience of losing a
friend tragically to suicide. I think we don't talk about
that at all really in our community. And September was
Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and in in in sort of
that that month, I was like digging more into research
(18:53):
and and and learned that our young black youth, the
rates of suicide have have grown over the last twenty
years when you compare the same age too, let's say
white white boys or young people, where that number has
sort of leveled off. So I think what that speaks
to in the point also that you're picking up on
is that in our community we haven't really talked about
(19:16):
what's going on enough. And it's not our fault. Like
I don't want to be like, oh, you know, black
people get it together. There's a lot of reasons behind it.
UM Dr Joy de Grew and I'm probably butchering her
last name, but the group UM is a social worker
who has studied what she calls post traumatic slavery syndrome,
and so she points out a lot of this um
(19:38):
tendency that we have that we have to be strong.
It comes back from the trauma that's been passed down
from slavery for example. Um, with that behavior was important,
it saved it saved someone for example, but then it
got passed down before you know it. You know, that's
sort of what we think when you say black people
were strong, Right, that's what we think. Um. So that's
(20:00):
an important I think person and her work I want
to uplift. But I think we just gotta talk and
be honest. That vulnerability, when you could share what you're
really feeling, it it lightens the burden. Right, My burden
is not for me to carry alone. If I can
share it, it lightens my load. But then it also
can lighten the load of someone else. Right. They may say, dang,
(20:20):
I'm glad you said that because I've been dealing with anxiety. Right.
I think I think these conversations and coming from black men,
like being started by black men, I think completely just
levels the playing field when we think about our community. Right.
I think if black men are taking the lead on
these conversations, it will only continue to get better. UM.
(20:43):
And I think we also have to again know our
history in the past, our engagement with psychiatry was not willful.
So what I mean by that is like in the sixties,
black men who were out front in terms of like
civil rights, they would get picked up and sent off
to the psych ward where they would stay. It's crazy
you said that, because I have an auntie who I
(21:05):
love dearly, like she's my ride to die. And I
just remember at one time, because she had the tumor,
there was the size of a grapefruit in her head,
and she had the surgery and she was better, but
she lost some senses and she like she will cuss
you out on the drop. I mean, like Charle Mayne
matter he went to a port, she gave him hell um.
(21:29):
But I just remember, you know, when she would getting
her things and go through her motions. They were always
talking about sending it to this place in Georgia called Jacksonville,
which we all just knew was the crazy House. And
we will all be like, oh, man, like you don't
want to, like it was just this thing. You didn't
want to go to the crazy house. So with that stigma,
(21:50):
even for myself growing up, it's like even if I
thought I was crazy, I wouldn't tell nobody else crazy
because I don't want to go to the crazy house.
And and I grew up just thinking and owing that,
And even when I was in my head about things,
I would never say, um, how I truly felt to anyone,
you know, because in in my family, you know, you
(22:10):
had to be strong and if you had problems, you
just gotta deal with them, and you don't. You don't
talk um at the dinner table, or you didn't need
the dinner at the dinner table together anyway, but you
don't talk at the dinner table about what's going on?
What can you do? And if your favorite uncle, you know,
he can't really give you an advice because he's going
through his own thing. And when we see people in
our communities they have real issues and real problems, we
(22:34):
look down on them and we don't offer help, and
we look at them, you know, like they're you know,
like they're crazy. And I just feel like growing up
that way, you know, put me in a place where
I didn't really talk about what I was thinking of
what I had going on the side of me because
I didn't think it was regular. I didn't think it
was normal. So now that I hear more of it,
it opens me up to the conversation. And I think
(22:56):
that would be real for us to take the lead
on that, because we gotta know another generation coming behind
us that you know, dealing with way more than we
ever dealt with. You know, just the way things are
coming at them. It's crazy because I remember at one point,
like just my transition from you know, the streets into music,
and I didn't really understand and know everything, so it
(23:17):
was really difficult for me. And I just remember these
long spouts when I finally got on because I couldn't
bring everybody that I wanted to bring with me, and
the ones that I did bring with me, it just
they just always found a way to make it like
not working, be crazy and like now we at odds.
And I just remember going through this this long spell
of what I didn't know then was depression because I
(23:39):
was just mad. I had all this money and all
this fame, and I was just mad about every time
when I say everything, everything, I was agitated everything I
got up every morning and it was the same thing.
I was just mad. I was just I was just
upset and angry. And I went through that for a while,
and so one day, I just said, Yo, you gotta really,
(24:00):
you know, you gotta really think about the things that
you're grateful for and think about the things that you
know that that has happened in your life for the better.
And I started to slowly pull myself out of that.
The thing that I'm trying to explain to you is
I didn't know I was depressed. I just thought that
was life, you know. And I'm thinking, you know, you know,
(24:20):
you smoke something, you go out, you drink, you have
a good time. You know, tomorrow be better, and you
just the more party and you do and the more
success you have, you think that that's gonna help you.
And my my my point in cases, you know, and
I want you to you know, timing on that, just
like we think where we come from that if we
are successful and we make it out and then we
(24:41):
do better than we thought we would do, that we
won't have any problems and we won't be depressed, and
we won't be anxious, and we won't worry about anything
because this money and the success is gonna wipe the
whole slate clean. Yeah, I mean, look what you're describing
there is again something that um I hear a lot,
And it is the reason why I my work to
(25:01):
social media, because I want people to hear conversations like
these and and I want it to be normal. UM.
People in our community, we don't identify with that word depression.
And you know, I say, like it took me going
to med school accepting that I wanted to end up
being a psychiatrist. I didn't go to med school and
be a psychiatrist like you know, but I found this
(25:22):
was a field that drew me UM. And that's where
I learned this terminology and accepted that maybe this is
something that UM could be going on in my life
or or the life of the people that I love.
So depression is not always a sadness. And again, I
think when we think about success and having like a
(25:43):
life that's better than others as the reason why we
can't be depressed, we miss out on the fact that
we are entitled to our feelings and our experience. Because
I hear that a lot, we'll say my situation isn't
as bad and so therefore it's not depression, or therefore
it's not you know, it could be worse. That's fine,
(26:04):
but it takes away from the fact that a person
might be feeling like they can't sleep at night, their
appetites gone, their concentrations off, they feel hopeless, they feel
like they don't want to live all of which if
you came into my office. If a person walks into
my office with that, I probably would diagnose him with depression.
It's not always that sadness. It's not always that stuff
(26:26):
you see on a commercial where the person looks all blue.
You can be functioning very well, but at the end
of the day feel down inside, feel like there's no hope,
and feel like you're going through the motions. And I
think again, the more conversations we have about it, the
more that I think people will be open to maybe
this is depression and I'm just functioning because that's what
(26:47):
I know how to do. We know how to grind.
I'm done with that narrative. You know what they say?
All else feels go get you some money, yeah, some play?
But now, um okay, I'm I'm a guy, I'm a
black man. You know, I have a lot of integrity.
I have, uh, you know, a lot of things going
(27:09):
for myself. I come into your office and I say hey,
Do I say hey, I'm depressed or do I say, Hey,
I have a lot of things going on in my
life right now. I'm quite sure the millions of millions
of black men out here do. How do I take
that that armor off to come in like just tell you, like, hey,
(27:30):
I'm really going through something right now, and I don't
understand what is happening with my thought process, and I'm
in a place to where I think that there's no
one else for me to talk to, so I want
to seek some professional help. How do how does that
do that? That sound cool? Yeah? I love that question. Um,
(27:53):
I think I would. I would start by saying, if
you're at that point, if a person at the point
where they have, you know, talk to talked over what
they're thinking, experiencing with people that they trust to love,
I always say that's a good place to go. You know,
everybody should have a core group of friends or just
a few people that they can have real conversations with,
like you know, real conversations where but the problem is
(28:16):
the problem is like the friends are depressed too, so
we are everybody Like you try to tell them like, man,
I'm going through my own thing. Man, I got you
know what I mean? You know, I guess in that case,
I would want you to use that core as like
the sounding board, and that's not for them to like
(28:37):
help you with the problem necessarily, but just to be like, yeah,
I think this is something you should get help for. Right. Um,
if you once you walk into the office, your job
at that point is just to start by saying why
you came in, And it doesn't have to be so
like organized and me. You don't have to say like
I've been feeling the press. It could be you know, look,
(28:58):
I'm here because I don't know what else to do.
And a good psychiatrist, a good therapist, will use what
you're sharing as a way to sort of begin to
have a conversation and the conversation will eventually go into
symptoms like that will tell me more about is this
depression that needs to be treated with the medication? Is
this anxiety? Well, we'll just sort of sort of gently
(29:20):
walk through your history and talk about really everything, not
not just you came in for, but even things that
maybe it happened in your past that you might be like,
what does that have to do with anything? But it
gives a full picture of who you want that we
can know how we're gonna you know, move forward with treatment.
So just walk in and talk. Okay, yeah, you know.
(29:42):
The thing is you come in you so um, you're
so exciting, like your anxious because you want to tell
the therapists everything, and once sit in, you first sit
down or not because you reserve um. And I think
a lot of times that's what it is, because you know,
it's almost like when you go see your lawyer if
you're in trouble. You want to tell them, you know,
(30:03):
everything you want them to know, and the first sit
down because you're, yeah, you gotta give me out of this.
So it's almost like, um, the same thing when you
come into the office, and I think them knowing that
they don't have to, you know, say everything in the
first visit helps as well. And then also ain't it
safe to say that talking to friends it's not therapy
(30:27):
because I just want to be clear because I you know,
because you've got some friends you talk to, they can
tell you everything about everything what you need to be doing,
and they do with the exact opposite, and they hypocrite
and and you know, give you all this advice and
you go out here in your life and you try
to do these things and you're already in the back
of this and then it just makes you worse. I
think we should think about our friends and loved ones
(30:48):
as like support, um, but not at all. Therapists not
people who should be you know, going through all of
our problems with us. You know, to think about your
therapist is that they you know, everything that you share
the stays there, which can be really helpful because you know,
sometimes you have a friendship and it goes sour and
then with all your information going to be right. Yeah,
(31:10):
that's good. But those friendships are important because again they
can sort of serve as that that core group that
can keep you in a place where you aren't a
person isn't dipping down to like right, And so I
guess you want to make sure that a person has
at least a few friends where they can be a
little open with um. But yeah, you're right. They should
(31:33):
not be people that you're going to solve challenges and
issues in your life because they're not right and and
and nine times out of ten is going to be
very biased. You think, like you should you know, if
you're going through a breakup, let's go get them, you know,
And you're like, right, like my uncle used to tell me.
(31:55):
He's like, yeah, he used to give me all this advice.
And he's also tell me like, man, you ain't never
get out of here. Just gonna give it up, you know,
go jo An army is something It's not gonna happen.
And every time I see him now, just look at them,
be like, what's up up? So I knew back then
anyone telling me what I said is what I said,
be knowing. But I know now mental health? How does
(32:15):
one understand that he could have some type of mental
um situation? And how does one go about that when
they don't have the resources or the finances to actually
just walk in someone and say, hey, I need to
talk to someone. How how does that work? If a
(32:37):
person is interested in getting treatment and they you know,
are curious, they hurt this conversation and they're like, maybe
I do want to get some help, Maybe I want
to talk to someone. UM. I think the first thing
to know is that it's not your job to identify
exactly what's going on. It just might be that, you know,
you feel a little off for other people are noticing it,
(32:59):
and now you want to try to do something. UM.
I would always recommend starting with like a Google search, UM,
you know, look for uh psychiatrist or therapists that are
in your area that are you know, accept Medicaid or SEPT.
You know, a sliding scale, which is really that's a
(33:19):
term for M They make special rates based on what
a person can afford to pay. Yeah. Yeah, so start
with that. You can just start you know, are there
psychiatrists in my area that have sliding scale? I don't know.
I'm not the best Google person, but yeah, you can
try that. UM. And then if you live in an
area where there are academic institutions, so like a university
(33:44):
of hospital. For example, in New York we have like
n y U, Columbia, Cornell. Those UM universities usually have residents,
and those clinics have appointments, and they're usually much cheaper
than seeing a psychiatrist who completely done with residency. UM.
So I always recommend going there. The good thing is
(34:05):
there on top of like the latest and they you know,
they follow evidence based treatment. There's a team that usually
discusses each patient. So you may end up seeing an
expert even though you're seeing a resident, because that resident
may go back and talk about, you know, a case
with someone who has written articles or journals about um
(34:26):
whatever issue of persons presenting for so I would recommend
trying that. And then also you know word of mouth,
like if you have a friend who shares that this
is where I go to get care, you can always
start start there. But I guess knowing that the first
step is it's it's pretty hard. So take that as
a sign that, like, I really need to do this
(34:46):
and just focus on one thing at a time. So
so that would be your first line of combat m
to to actually go in and sit down and have
a conversation one step at a time. It took me
a long time. I'm mean, I've been in my own therapy. Uh,
it took me a long time to even make that
first step, which was the phone call to a name
(35:08):
that was given. And I think a part of it
is because for the same thing that we've been talking about,
you have periods where you feel like, you know, okay,
that I'm better. That was maybe that was just one
time that I felt right okay, and then it keeps happening.
So each time you think about it, I would say
that's a sign to take another step to try. I've
(35:32):
done a lot better with anxiety for the simple fact
that you know, I understand what it is, and you know,
fears when you let you know, something outside of your
body control you in the situation. And I feel like, Um,
for me, you know, I just exercised my brain enough
to know, Okay, I know this is just a feeling.
I know this is something that I don't need, you know,
(35:53):
to deal with. But how do you know it's to
the point when you when you might need medication? Like
how do you know? Because I have other people that
I know that it's experience anxiety, and they might you know,
walk out of a room and go outside of the
air and you know, do all these different things and
then they come back and they're fine. And you've got
some people that just gotta go take it in and
lay down and you know, do their whole you know,
routine to kind of get over it. But like, how
(36:15):
do you know when it's to a point that you
you should really be trying to get some help, like
this is this is bad, this is this is terrible. Yeah,
So usually I talk about like severity of symptoms. So, um,
you know, if a person has anxiety, that's just me again,
maybe they worry a lot but they can manage. They know,
(36:35):
like you said they can't exercise or that they're like
mental conditioning. They're like, okay, you're worried this, this will
be over soon. Focus on what you're doing. But if
a person starts having panic attacks where again they're out
of nowhere, can't catch their breath, their hearts beating quickly,
they feel like they got to escape. If that's happening, often,
I often would recommend a person either get into a
(36:59):
therapy that they're meeting every week with their therapists UM
and seeing if that can help reduce those symptoms, or
they see a psychiatrist and they started medication UM. So
the severity of symptoms is one, like you're just having
a lot of symptoms and they're hard to manage. The
other part is if it's affecting your functioning. So if
(37:19):
a person normally can go to work on time, they
don't have problems with sleep, they don't have problems in
their relationship or with their children, but now their anxiety
is starting to make them snap at their significant other
over nothing right like I just asked for a glass
of water. Why am I getting yelled at? Or you
know they're being really like short with their children. Their
(37:43):
children are trying to understand why they're showing up to
work late. This is now affecting your functioning, and so
for that person, I would recommend seeing a professional and
really considering medications so that the symptoms can get better
under control. And then maybe you go to therapy in
addition to that, to explore a bit more about what's happening,
(38:03):
um that could be making the symptoms come up the
way they are. Well, let's see, it's crazy too, because
you know when you grow up, you just you see
people and you just think this is so perfect and
they just got everything together and and then and then
you hear these stories about you know, these their mental
health issues and you're like wow, Like I never when
a million years with the thought, Um, you know, Charlemagne
(38:25):
was one, like I said, when he said therapy, I
was like, WHOA, I don't know, Like I'm not I
might have would have went, but I don't think I
would have let nobody but people like himself, you know,
opening the doors for us to um come out and
really speak on it because we have an empathy and
we're helping others through our trial and our trial and
our trauma and UM. Going back to what you said
(38:48):
before about trauma, I've experienced my share of it. And
when you go sit down with your therapist again psychologists,
and they're asking these questions about some of your up
ring in your childhood, what happened with your mother and
father already see all together, and they're asking these questions
to just kind of get a a setting, if you will,
(39:09):
of what you've been through. They could have triggered things,
or they're asking that to put things together to understand
how you're thinking these days. When a person is UM,
like going in to talk with a therapist, psychologists, or
psychiatrists around UM issues from their past, trauma is a
can really lead to a lot of issues, right. It
(39:30):
can lead to anxiety, It can lead to depression. It
can lead to a person developing like a substance problem
where they are using UM substances not just to code,
but they really have a dependency like ah, they're addicted
to it UM. And so when when I'm seeing someone
who comes in and they have a significant history of trauma,
(39:51):
I'm thinking a lot about how much that's informing the
way that they live, how they experience the world. UM.
You know, pe TSD. I know we throw that word
around a lot, but people suffer UM with that condition
because it's not just that UM they're having flashbacks or nightmares.
They also really can struggle a lot again with depression
(40:13):
and anxiety. And we know that that condition is not UM.
It's not so easily treatable. What I mean by that
is it's it's not easy for us to sort of
treat with the same medication like I'll you know, I'll
care for people and I have to tell them like, look,
I'm treating UM your depression and anxiety, but you really
are going to have to get into a trauma informed therapy,
(40:35):
and that trauma informed therapy is probably going to help
you more than this medication because the way that trauma
affects some people, and not everyone who experienced trauma develops
a disorder or symptoms like depression or anxiety. But for
those who do, it's it's a it's a more complex
condition than you know, straight straight up depression or straight
(40:58):
straight up anxiety. Um. Wow, So so you're telling me
postraumatic stresses like one of the worst ones in terms
of just comparing the two. Yeah, Because people can experience
a lot of symptoms of both. So they might be
really really down and have low energy and problems with
concentration and their moods low. That would kind of be
depressed depression. But then they also may be really anxious,
(41:21):
can't leave their house without feeling afraid that they might
get you know, mugged or whatever it is that sort
of will happen around the trauma um some people, and
it doesn't happen as often, but some people, their trauma
can can cause them to hallucinate, to like hear voices,
um to sometimes think that they're seeing things that aren't there.
(41:42):
And again, I think it just speaks to how again,
like you you brought up like the question about mental health,
like our brains can change because of trauma. Our brains
can change in a way that makes us have these
these symptoms, these disorders because our brain is just like
the their organs in our bodies, right and they it's
(42:03):
not going to just stay perfect. We have to care
for it. We have to um make sure that we
are are getting help when things seem different, and just
the same way that we would if you had I
don't know, diabetes, or you if you if you hurt
your leg or something like you gotta nurse it back
to a good place before you just begin to walk
on it. It's crazy as you say that, because I
(42:24):
would assume I would have I don't like to assume,
but I would imagine, especially this younger generation of millennials,
a lot of them really experienced postraumatic stress just just
because of the circumstances and the and the things they've
been brought up in. And it's just like, you know,
they've been um desensitized to a lot of things that
(42:47):
normally wouldn't fly. But like now it's just like the
way they have to move militant, the way they have
to think, um, the way they're seeing, you know, the
appears you know, being killed left and right, and what
you're watching going on on the racial side, and you know,
all this racial tension and all these different things. And
for you to say that could be one of the
worst ones, I would imagine that that's what they experienced
(43:09):
the most. So how does that work, Because now you
have a whole generation that you know possibly can have,
you know, mental health issues, just you know, based on
the way the world is set up for them right now,
and they're and they're young enough not to want to
go get help. It's just like you just grow up
and you know, you just go on living life and
you think this is normal and you know, not not
(43:30):
to take nothing away. But I almost feel like that's
why they indulge in more, you know, different types of
experimental drugs than we did when we was coming up.
You know. It's just like you know, I you know,
and when you start thinking serb and all these different things,
it's just like there has to be a state where
you just want to be numb because your mind is
just like, you know, just giving you so many, you know,
(43:51):
just different emotions, and you just want to get into
a place where you can control it. And I just
think that's crazy because it's just like they're not enough
therapist and psychologists in the world for that. That definitely
breaks my heart in as you describe it, I'm like,
I'm shaking my head because it's I think you're you're
absolutely onto something. When we think about our young people,
(44:12):
um and just how society has really just shifted to
something that you know, I mean, it's it's never been
perfect for for for for black folk for sure, but
I think it's it's at a point now where it's
just it's it's a lot to sort of take in.
And even if we just think about how much information
they have thrown at them, and we think about like,
(44:33):
you know, back when I was in high school, you
just have to worry about making it through like the
lunch period and that was it. Get home. But now
the lunch period is like you open up the phone
and there it is. You know, So they have a
lot more that they are being exposed to, a lot
more that they're navigating. And I think when you talk
about this culture of like they're using a lot of
other substances. They're not just smoking weed. They're like sorry, Molly,
(44:56):
and that's all this other stuff and it's just and
you're so many young people dive overdose it. So, um
my heart goes out to them. I think the media
thought I have is again I think that's why parents, Um,
it's gonna be so important to have that dinner table conversation,
bring everyone around the table. Encourage times where you are
(45:16):
putting the phone away. Try to start early with it.
You know, don't be trying to take the phone away
from your kid. If they're like a senior in high school,
it might be no try to set that up early
where it's a part of that. They know when we
come together to eat, this is the time when we
are connecting. I need to know what's going on. I
need to know how to help you. UM. And you know,
(45:39):
parents look for signs signs of depressions, and young people
it looks different. They can actually look more upset, angry, irritable.
They kind of shut down. UM. They may not just
sort of look sad or um, you know, kind of
express it. They may just really start to seem very
upset and angry. And that can be a sign that
(45:59):
you're trying all this experiencing depression and you want to
act quickly. You want to not just say get over it.
You have a roof over your head or what do
you upset it out right? Definitely definitely what my daddy
told me. You got no bills, go ahead, no. So
(46:20):
I was just saying, it's important for us to um
stop undo some of the stuff that our parents did
to us. We gotta we gotta recognize that you gotta
validate your kids feelings. I'm gonna get you a lot
further than just saying get over it because you have
a roof of your head children are dying. We see
that from the data. They're dying from suicide. Like I
(46:41):
talked about before, people are hitting their breaking point. There's
so many things that happened in this world that are
back to back, back to back, back to back, So
I can only imagine what that does to someone's mental health.
I definitely appreciate the insight. UM, I definitely appreciate the
Jews who dropped today because I just feel like, you know,
(47:03):
for even someone like myself, I just want to know that,
you know, no matter what my people going through, that
there's help out there somewhere. And and and speaking of that,
like in your practice, do you see more African American
males and women? Didn't you do any other nationalities or racist?
I'm seeing more. I get a lot of people who
(47:23):
reach out also, like by email and and you know,
through social media, people are interested in finding finding therapists.
And I guess I also want to just throw it
out there, we also need more black people to go
into these fields. So I want to encourage people to
do how many years to be a psychiatrist? Now, a
psychiatrist is a long time. Um, you know, you gotta
(47:46):
go through college and med school, but look, a person
can be a therapist and help, like help so many
people and that doesn't take as long and they can
earn it even living too. So I think if anyone
out there is like, hey, this might be a career,
I want to try look into it because we need
more people that look like us to provide care for sure.
(48:06):
And as of now, are you doing more um? Are
you doing more zoom sessions? How does that? How does
that work as it's still the same intimate state. Do
you feel like you're getting the best out of people
when they're looking at you? Because I feel like I'm
getting a session right now, so I'm just asking. But yeah,
I mean, like like most psychiatrists or therapists, the visits
(48:30):
are virtual. Now, um, you know, I think it doesn't
take away from the day when we will all be
able to kind of you know, be in the same
spaces and not be afraid of getting teck. Um. But
I'll tell you, I'm definitely getting emotion from people. People
are you know, feeling relief once they finally share what's
been on their mind. So it's it's I think it's
(48:51):
just as helpful and it's keeping us all safe too.
In terms of you know, not getting sick from the virus.
Love to hear Dr just and I thank you for
stopping by the recessing podcast, dropping these gyms and these jewels.
Is there any last words anything you want to bless us?
What about mental health? Any anything you want to tell
(49:14):
us about you know where we should get some treatment
if you want to find you I don't know, like,
what are we doing here? Yeah? It so you. Thank
you well, thanks for having me um. People can find
me on social media ask Dr Jazz. I'm not accepting
new patients at the moment, but I always encourage people
to send me a message. I may start a group
(49:34):
or two because I know people need that and that's
also another great way to sort of get started um
with it. And I just want to encourage people. If
it's on your mind to seek help, please seek it.
Do not wait, don't worry about what people think, because
at the end of the day, it's your life. You've
only got one and you've got to take care of
your mental health. So that that would be all I
want to say to people, And thank you again, Thank
(49:57):
you so much. Dr Jess. You've been amazing. You've been amazing.
I feel like I got a free session, so next
time I look you up on line. All right, thank
you so much. Thanks for listening to The Recession Podcast
by Jeez, a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio.
(50:19):
But more podcasts visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
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